


Muppet One Shots

by GroovyCat18



Category: The Jim Henson Hour, The Muppet Show, The Muppets - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Humor, Love, M/M, Prank Wars, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 10:56:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2729855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GroovyCat18/pseuds/GroovyCat18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Outside of their entertaining show business, the Muppets also like to make fun behind the scenes, from a few small practical jokes to very insane pranks! There will also be a sweet moment between the character pairings every now and then. Groovy Story</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tape Recorder

**Author's Note:**

> **What happens when Lips leaves Clifford to record Muppet Meetings while he's out of town. What could happen when everyone realizes there's a tape recording in the room? One word: Chaos.**

Lips was going out of town for a few days, so just in case if there were any meetings involving what would be performed on the Muppet Show, he had Clifford record them, thinking nothing could go wrong with that.

One day, Kermit held a meeting in Muppet Theater about suggestions for what to perform for the show that week. Kermit stood on the stage while all the other Muppets were seated in the auditorium, where the frog said, "Okay everyone, the show this week has to be very good, like all the other Muppet Show performances and I need everything to be in good taste and go smoo-Clifford, what's that you got in your lap?"

Clifford had a tape recorder from the 90s that he was using to record the audio of the meeting. "This thing? It's a tape recorder. Since Lips is out of town for a while, he asked me to record all the meetings. To know what was happening at the theater, you know," the Rastafarian explained.

Clifford didn't notice this but Dr. Teeth suddenly got a mischievous look in his eye, signifying he was going to do something crazy.

"Ah, alright then. Well, let's carry on with the meeting shall we. Now, who has some suggestions for what to perform on the Muppet Show first?" Kermit asked his friends.

Miss Piggy stood up and said, "As always, moi will perform a song that will receive wonderful applause and-." But that was as far as the pig went for Dr. Teeth suddenly jumped to his feet, shouting, "Oh my god! Clifford! What are you doing?!"

"What?" Clifford said, confused. He wasn't doing anything wrong. He was just sitting in a seat in the auditorium.

"You're not allowed to take off your pants in the middle of the theater!" Dr. Teeth shouted.

"What! No I ain't!" Clifford snapped.

Zoot, upon realizing what Dr. Teeth was doing, smirked and added, "You know what, Cliff; just back off. You're making me uncomfortable. That's sexual harassment by the way!"

"Zoot, I'm not doing any-," Clifford said until Rowlf said, "Oh great Jim! He has a knife!"

"I do not have a knife!" Clifford shouted.

Floyd Pepper then threw in, "No, let the recording show that Clifford is completely nude and is holding a plastic knife to Walter's neck!"

"Let the recording show that Sgt. Floyd Pepper is a liar!" Clifford hollered.

Janice then snatched the microphone from Clifford's hand and whispered, "Lips, Clifford is now wearing a thong. A women's thong, fer sure!"

"I am not!" Clifford snapped.

Miss Piggy, upon realizing what her friends were doing, decided to get in on the joke. "Oh my gosh! Louis Armstrong's ghost just appeared on the stage! Clifford, get a picture quickly for Lips!" she squealed.

"Louis Armstrong's ghost DID NOT appear on the stage, Miss Piggy!" Clifford snapped.

Then, Zondra asked, "What is that on your back, Clifford? Is that a tattoo…OF QUEEN LATIFA!?"

"Oh my goodness, Zondra! You're right! That is a tattoo of Queen Latifa on Clifford's back…and she's wearing a skin-exposing lingerie!" Walter exclaimed.

"Walter! That's-that's just messed up, man!" Clifford shouted.

Gonzo them jumped up and screamed, "I am now chopping off Fozzie's head with a chainsaw!"

The theater then went silent and everyone stared at the whatever with wide eyes of horror.

"Gonzo, that's just twisted," Clifford said.

"What? Too much?" Gonzo asked, confused.

"And why me?!" Fozzie asked frantically.

"I thought we were just joking around to freak out Lips?" Gonzo asked.

Clifford then stood up and shouted, "You know what! Cut that out! Lips does not need to hear all this nonsense from you guys! He needs to know what the set-up for the Muppet Show this week and none of your guys are helping!"

"Clifford's right, we did get a little carried away," Dr. Teeth said. "Sorry, Cliff, we were just teasing."

"Alright, just don't do it anymore," Clifford said, taking a deep breath.

"Okay, now before Miss Piggy continues with what she's about to say, let me say this; Clifford," Kermit said.

"Yeah Kerm?" Clifford asked his boss.

Kermit gave the Muppet a serious expression before saying, "Please put your clothing back on! Nobody wants to see you wearing a women's underwear!"

All the Muppets in the auditorium erupted with laughter, except for Clifford, who had a mortified expression on his face before he snapped, "You know what! I'm not getting any respect as long as I have this tape recorder, so I'm just going to give it to somebody else and leave. Janice, since you have the mic, you're taking the recorder."

"Okay," Janice said, taking the tape recorder and setting it on her lap as Clifford walked out of the auditorium.

Then, Dr. Teeth grabbed the microphone and said into it, "Lips, you might want to forget about being happy with Clifford; dude's got a list of his ex-girlfriends tattooed on the back of his bare legs! He's a player!"

"DR. TEETH!" Clifford shouted as he ran back into the room and tackled the keyboardist to the ground, where the two Muppets proceeded to fight.

"I said to cut out that nonsense!"

"Not my arm! Don't grab my arm! OW!"

"You're a terrible friend!"

"You're worse because you're attacking me about it!"

"I'm doing this to teach you a lesson!"

"Well, it's a horrible lesson!"

While the two Muppets battled and Zoot and Digit tried to split them up, Floyd grabbed the microphone and whispered, "Just a word of warning Lips; Clifford does NOT take teasing to well."


	2. Lips' Hair Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **What happens when Miss Piggy decides to "restyle" Lips' usual afro?**

Miss Piggy sat on the sofa, flipping through a magazine, looking very impatient about something. She looked through the magazine until she came across a small ad regarding a brand new hair straightener called the Str-8-Ner 3000. It was said to be handheld which only needed to be charged every now and then and could straighten all sorts of hair according to the ad commercial; wavy hair, curly, crimped hair, even afros, which Piggy doubted a little, but she bought the thing anyway because her old straightener broke down and neither Bunsen Honeydew nor Digit could fix it. It was supposed to be delivered today, but it was taking a while.

Finally, there was a knock at the door, which Piggy practically ran to answer and threw open the door. "Package for Miss Piggy," the mail person said, holding a brown box and a clipboard.

Piggy snatched the clipboard from the man and signed her name on the document she needed, gave it back to the man, yanked the package from him, saying a quick "thank you" before dashing up to her room and ripping open the box.

She marveled at how amazing the Str-8-Ner 3000 looked; it was a very shiny pink shade with a few hints of monochrome metal surrounding where the silver buttons were. She was very excited, so after taking a quick shower, which she skipped that morning so she could try out the hair straighter later in the day, and used the hair device and the results were perfect! Her hair was straight and still shiny, when her old one honestly left a few dark spots, possibly signs of burning some strands of her hair, which didn't look too good.

Then, she started to wonder if it worked just as well with crimped hair, curly or an afro as it did for her wavy hair, but as far as she knew, nobody in the Muppet Boarding had crimped hair and the Muppets with curly hair probably wouldn't let her use the device on their hair, and there was only one person in the house with an afro…which would make her hair straighter very useful for the prank that crossed her mind.

Miss Piggy snuck around the house, still gripping her Str-8-Ner 3000, looking for her victim. She finally found him sleeping face down on his bed in the bedroom he shared with two of his bandmates. Piggy snickered as she clicked the hair straightener on.

An hour later, Lips woke up from his nap, which he needed since the day had been very rough on him, mainly because it was his turn to take Animal for a walk earlier that morning and that drummer liked to cars a little too much! Lips sat up on his bed and went downstairs to see Zoot, Dr. Teeth and Clifford down in the kitchen, getting some soda for themselves. Lips entered and asked, "Can you pour me a cup too; I need some caffeine."

Clifford looked up to look at his partner saying, "Sure thing, Li-." But the Rastafarian suddenly stopped speaking and his mouth was wide open in shock. He lifted up his shades, showing that his eyes were very wide-open as well and he rubbed his eyes for a moment and looked back at Lips, as if he was wondering if he was seeing what he was seeing.

Lips also noticed Dr. Teeth and Zoot had very surprised expressions as they stared at the trumpeter.

"What's wrong? Do I have bedhead?" he asked.

"Well…bedhead is the kind of hair you usually have every day, no offense," Zoot said flatly.

"What does that mean?" Lips asked.

Clifford then asked, "Have you looked in a mirror today?"

"Um…no," Lips admitted.

"Lips…go check out your reflection," Dr. Teeth told his friend.

Lips ran up the stairs to the bathroom to check his reflection in the mirror, thinking what was wrong that made his friends look so shocked and tell him to check how he looked. Did Rizzo and Pepe draw on his face? Lips rubbed his face everywhere and looked at his hands to see if there were smears of red or black marker ink on his fingers, but there was none. What was up with them? Lips finally made it to the bathroom where he flicked on the light and looked at the mirror.

Somewhere else downstairs, Miss Piggy was talking to Annie Sue and Janice, who had complimented her on her straightened hair.

"But I thought your old straightener broke," Annie Sue said.

"It did, but moi ordered a new one. The Str-8-Ner 3000. As it turns out, it can work on wavy hair, like I used to have and afros," Piggy explained.

"An afro? You didn't have an afro," Janice said, confused.

"True, but someone in this house does…or should moi say did?" Miss Piggy asked the guitarist.

Janice was about to respond when there was a loud familiar scream from somewhere in the house.

"That sounded like Lips!" Annie Sue exclaimed.

Janice raced up the stairs and looked around the house, trying to find her bandmate when she saw him run out of the bathroom and dash back downstairs. "Lips! Like, what's wrong?" she asked, going after him. She followed him to the kitchen where Zoot, Dr. Teeth, and Clifford were standing and Lips half-shouted, "Why didn't you tell me as soon as I walked into the room?!"

"Because you would've flipped out about it!" Clifford exclaimed.

"Too bad! I'm flipping out right now!" Lips snapped back.

Janice looked at Lips to see his hair was no longer in its fluffy, afro form; it was now long and straight, which just went past his shoulders. It looked a little odd on the trumpeter, since everyone was used to him with his afro and all.

"Who did this to me?" Lips asked his friends after calming down a little.

"I don't-," Zoot was about to answer until Janice said, "Miss Piggy mentioned she got a new hair straightener that can work on afros. She was like, telling me and Annie Sue a while ago."

At that moment, Lips ran out of the room and went to find the pig diva. "Miss Piggy! Where are you?" he shouted.

"Yes? You called moi," Miss Piggy asked, walking over to her fellow Muppet, trying her best to hold back her laughter due to the fact that Lips looked pretty ridiculous with straight hair.

"Why?! Why did you use that straightener on me of all the Muppets in this house?!" Lips cried.

"Well…I kind of wondered how you'd look with straight hair, and also, you were the only Muppet with an afro," Piggy explained.

"I look stupid with my hair like this! I can't perform looking like this! The audience will either laugh at me or just stare at me or even take a few pictures. Or all three!" Lips shouted.

Piggy gasped and said, "You're right!"

"Now you feel bad about pulling such a cruel joke on me?" Lips asked.

"No! Now the publicity will be talking about your straightened hair and not moi!" Piggy admitted, which resulted in Lips letting out and exasperated sigh and stomping off.

Zoot, Dr. Teeth, Clifford and Janice entered the living room to join their friends. "Isn't the Muppet show tonight?" Clifford asked his lover.

"Oh man! You're right, Clifford! It is tonight! And like I said, everyone is going to make fun of me!" Lips cried, sitting on the sofa.

"Don't worry, Lips, there has to be a way to fix this," Janice said. The blonde thought for a few moments until she got an idea. "Lips, hold still," she told her friend.

"Why?" Lips asked the female Muppet.

Janice then went over to him and started to ruffle his hair with her hands very fast.

"AH! What are you doing?" Lips asked his friend.

"Fixing your hair," Janice said, casually.

After a few seconds, she stopped and pulled her hands away from the trumpeter's hair, which looked fluffy again. "Ta-da!" she exclaimed.

Then, Lips' hair fell back to being straightened again.

"Not ta-da," Clifford said, shaking his head.

"Well, that plan worked," Zoot said sarcastically.

"What do I do now? I can't go onstage or in the orchestra pit like this. I'm going to attract a lot of attention looking like this!" Lips stated.

"Do you still have that dashiki with the hood I gave you once?" Clifford asked his partner.

"Yeah, but I can't wear it in the orchestra pit! Nigel is stricter about the orchestra members wearing those purple suits than you think!" Lips stated.

"How about a hat?" Zoot suggested.

"That'll look weird! I don't look good in a hat," Lips said.

"Then we got no other options; I think you're going to have to go out in public like that tonight, Lips," Dr. Teeth told the trumpeter.

Lips let out another exasperated sigh before running upstairs.

That night on the Muppet Show, Lips gave in to Zoot's suggestion and decided to wear a hat when he performed in the orchestra pit when he had to perform the opening number. Some people in the audience did give him a few odd looks, but nobody paid too much attention to him, which was good. Later, like Clifford suggested, after playing trumpet in the orchestra pit, he threw on his hoody dashiki and spent most of the night like with the hood up, hiding his new hairstyle.

At one point, Fozzie ran up to Kermit while Lips was around the area, saying, "Kermit! My routine still isn't working!" The bear had two balloons attached to his back due to static electricity, originally planning to do a comedy sketch involving it, but was now having second thoughts.

"There has to be something else you could do with those balloons that'll be funny or at least entertaining to watch…but first, there's something that's been pretty much bothering me all night," Kermit told his friend before walking over to Lips, where the frog asked the trumpeter, "Lips, why are you wearing a hoodie? It's making you look a little gangster-ish."

"Well…Piggy decided to experiment with her new hair straightener today…and it could be used on afros," Lips explained.

"Really? Let me see," Kermit said, curious about how Lips looked without his afro.

Lips sighed and pulled down the hood for his dashiki hoodie, revealing his straight hair.

"Whoa, you look odd with hair like that," Kermit admitted.

Fozzie, upon seeing the trumpeter, became very surprised for a few moments until an idea crossed his mind; an idea that would help Lips and his act! "I have an idea for my act!" he exclaimed as he grabbed Lips and dragged him onstage.

"Fozzie! You're not going to make fun of Lips are you!" Kermit shouted at his friend.

"No! It's a different idea!" Fozzie insisted as the curtains opened.

At that moment, Clifford ran out of the canteen after seeing Fozzie take Lips onstage with his straight hair exposed. "Where's the bear?" he asked Kermit.

"Onstage, but don't worry, Fozzie said he's not going to make fun of Lips," Kermit told the Rastafarian, who replied, "He better not."

Onstage, Lips could see some members of the audience snickering at his straight hair, which made the trumpeter very uncomfortable.

"You may be laughing at Lips now, but his hair won't be like this for long after I pull of this amazing trick I just thought of!" Fozzie exclaimed.

At that moment, several people in the auditorium whipped out camera phones and started to snap pictures, making Lips feel more embarrassed than ever!

"Cut that out! No flash photography, please!" Fozzie hollered. After the camera flashes from the phones stopped, Fozzie gripped the balloons he had in his hands, which he started to rub really fast on his shoulders. "What you're about to witness will be the most amazing thing ever! Brace yourselves! Ladies, hold onto your boyfriends!" the bear exclaimed.

Then, without warning, Fozzie held the balloons onto Lips' hair, which resulted in a large electric flash and Fozzie shouting in pain.

Lips felt a warmth on his head after the flash and grabbed his hair, worried that it caught on fire or something, only to see it was back to being an afro! "Wow! Awesome! Thanks Foz-," he exclaimed turning toward the bear only to see that the electric shock had burnt most of his fur to a black or dark brown shade.

"No…pro…blem…" Fozzie said, before collapsing to the ground.

At that moment, Clifford and Miss Piggy, who had seen the incident on the TV monitors in the canteen, went onstage to see Lips.

"Well, what do you know! Fozzie got your hair back to normal!" Clifford exclaimed.

"Yeah! I know!" Lips said happily.

"Well, so much for a new hairstyle," Piggy muttered.

"Miss P, can you come over here for a few moments?" Lips asked the diva, getting ahold of the balloons and started to rub them on his hair.

"What?" Piggy asked, approaching the trumpeter.

Then, without warning, Lips used the balloons to shock Miss Piggy's hair, which resulted in it good everywhere and looked like she had a big afro due to her long hair. "I've always wondered what you looked like with an afro…not as good as I thought, but at least you have a new hair straightener to fix it," Lips admitted.

"LIPS! You're toast!" Piggy shouted at the trumpeter who then took off for the sake of his life.


End file.
